Is There A Madden Curse?

Linda writes "GamerDad looks at the 'Madden Curse' for those featured on the front cover of the videogame, year by year, and talks about how it might have come a bit early this year: 'Sports fans know about the Sports Illustrated cover curse (athletes that grace the cover tend to get hurt, really bad, a lot) but a lesser known curse is the one caused by EA Sports' powerhouse Madden franchise. It began just a few years ago when EA took the big lug himself off the cover.'" There's another good synopsis of previous cover stars' woes at the AJC.com site, after Mike Vick of the Atlanta Falcons, this year's star, broke his leg at the weekend.

Comments

Speaking as a Skeptic...

[avalys]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, you superstitious fool!

Re:Same thing for NHL

[Anonymous Coward]

ESPN Gamer has a good write up of all of the game-cover curses right here.

Re:Troy Brown

[Golias]

All "cover curses" come down to this: Players tend to get attention when they play beyond expectations. That means that "Joe Pointguard" is going to get on the cover of "Fantasy Basketball Player Annual" right after playing the season of a lifetime.

So, the players that get on covers are players that just had great performances. Those performances will be tough to match by the same player, especially now that all the players who compete against them will no longer be taken by surprise by what they can accomplish.

For every Michael Jordan, who plays at an incredible level for year after year, there are a dozen Penny Hardaways and Vince Carters, who dazzle fans for a while and then reveal themselves to be merely good starting players in a league that's packed with other superstars.

Curse?? HOGWASH!!

[flikx]

If you play a dangerous sport, you WILL get hurt.